The Greek's Pregnant Bride

‘Show me what?’

He straightened his shirt, then turned back to face her. ‘I’ll take you to meet her. You can see for yourself why I don’t want my mother anywhere near our wedding.’

* * *

The car came to a stop outside an immaculate two-storey house in a quiet Athenian suburb.

No sooner had the engine been turned off than Christian got out, not bothering to wait for the driver to open the door for him.

The entire drive had been conducted in silence, Christian sitting ramrod-straight, only the whiteness of his knuckles betraying what lay beneath his skin.

It was a demeanour Alessandra had never seen from him before. It unnerved her.

That he’d cancelled his first appointment of the day had unnerved her even more; that, and the grim way he’d said, ‘Let’s get it over with.’

sense of dread that she followed him out of the car and

woman with short white hair appeared at the door, lines all over her weathered face, her thin lips clamped together in

heel and walked back inside, leaving the

strong smell of bleach

about it. What could have been a beautiful home was nothing but a carcass, sanitised functionality at

Christian introduced them, and looking through her when Alessandra said, ‘Hárika ya tin gnorimía,’— ‘pleased to meet you’—a phrase she’d practised with the girl who’d brought breakfast to her suite that morning after Christian had grudgingly agreed to

gathered together in the immaculate kitchen, where the stench of bleach was even stronger. No refreshments

attention was on her son. She was speaking harshly to him in quick-fire Greek, whatever she said enough to make the pulse in his jawline throb. When he replied, his answers were short but measured. At one point he

Alessandra had never sat in such a poisonous atmosphere

same blue as

being raised by this woman made her skin feel as icy as Elena’s eyes. But Christian

form of emotional entanglement when this was what he’d grown

for guts and determination but had not appreciated then exactly how great his